ArticleJournal of clinical microbiology2012
Evaluation of a PCR test for detection of treponema pallidum in swabs and blood.
Article in Journal of clinical microbiology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
54 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 150 citations in OpenAlex.
- Global research trends in neurosyphilis: a bibliometric analysis from 2010 to 2024.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Pooled it
- Comparison of Diagnostic Accuracy of PCR Targeting the 47-Kilodalton Protein Membrane Gene of Treponema pallidum and PCR Targeting the DNA Polymerase I Gene: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Journal of clinical microbiology · 2015Pooled it
- A systematic review of syphilis serological treatment outcomes in HIV-infected and HIV-uninfected persons: rethinking the significance of serological non-responsiveness and the serofast state after therapy.BMC infectious diseases · 2015Pooled it
- Oral linezolid compared with benzathine penicillin G for treatment of early syphilis in adults (Trep-AB Study) in Spain: a prospective, open-label, non-inferiority, randomised controlled trial.The Lancet. Infectious diseases · 2024Trial
- The Potential for Combined Treponemal/Nontreponemal Rapid Point-of-Care Test and Treponema pallidum Polymerase Chain Reaction in the Diagnosis of Gestational and Congenital Syphilis in a Low-Resource, High-Prevalence Setting: Pilot Data From Malawi.Sexually transmitted diseases · 2026Article
- Molecular characterization of Treponema pallidum-related rabbit-derived material following experimental inoculation with human chancre-derived clinical specimens: a pilot exploratory study.BMC microbiology · 2026Article
- Updates on epidemiology and diagnostic tests of syphilis in South Korea.The Korean journal of internal medicine · 2026Review
- Molecular Diagnosis of Syphilis in Brazilian Ambulatory Patients: Detection ofMicroorganisms · 2026Article
- Clinical Presentation of Early Syphilis and Genomic Sequences of Treponema pallidum Strains in Patient Specimens and Isolates Obtained by Rabbit Inoculation.The Journal of infectious diseases · 2024Article
- A Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Assay Utilizing Hydroxy Naphthol Blue (LAMP-HNB) for the Detection ofPathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Assay Using Gold Nanoparticles for DetectingDiagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Multiplex Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification Coupled Lateral Flow Assay for Point-of-Care Detection of Syphilis.Indian journal of microbiology · 2024Article
- CDC Laboratory Recommendations for Syphilis Testing, United States, 2024.MMWR. Recommendations and reports : Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Recommendations and reports · 2024Article
- Syphilis Complicating Pregnancy and Congenital Syphilis.The New England journal of medicine · 2024Review
- Article
- Treponema pallidum Detection at Asymptomatic Oral, Anal, and Vaginal Sites in Adults Reporting Sexual Contact with Persons with Syphilis.Emerging infectious diseases · 2023Article
- Red Blood Cell Lysis Pretreatment Can Significantly Improve the Yield of Treponema pallidum DNA from Blood.Microbiology spectrum · 2023Article
- Appraisal of vitreous syphilis antibody as a novel biomarker for the diagnosis of syphilitic uveitis: a prospective case-control study.Eye (London, England) · 2023Article
- Detection of Treponema pallidum DNA During Early Syphilis Stages in Peripheral Blood, Oropharynx, Ano-Rectum and Urine as a Proxy for Transmissibility.Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America · 2022Article
- A Systematic Review on Suitability of Molecular Techniques for Diagnosis and Research into Infectious Diseases of Concern in Resource-Limited Settings.Current issues in molecular biology · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
14 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Syphilis diagnosis is based on clinical observation, serological analysis, and dark-field microscopy (DFM) detection of Treponema pallidum subsp. pallidum, the etiological agent of syphilis, in skin ulcers. We performed a nested PCR (nPCR) assay specifically amplifying the tpp47 gene of T. pallidum from swab and blood specimens. We studied a cohort of 294 patients with suspected syphilis and 35 healthy volunteers. Eighty-seven of the 294 patients had primary syphilis, 103 had secondary syphilis, 40 had latent syphilis, and 64 were found not to have syphilis. The T. pallidum nPCR results for swab specimens were highly concordant with syphilis diagnosis, with a sensitivity of 82% and a specificity of 95%. Reasonable agreement was observed between the results obtained with the nPCR and DFM methods (kappa = 0.53). No agreement was found between the nPCR detection of T. pallidum in blood and the diagnosis of syphilis, with sensitivities of 29, 18, 14.7, and 24% and specificities of 96, 92, 93, and 97% for peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC), plasma, serum, and whole-blood fractions, respectively. HIV status did not affect the frequency of T. pallidum detection in any of the specimens tested. Swab specimens from mucosal or skin lesions seemed to be more useful than blood for the efficient detection of the T. pallidum genome and, thus, for the diagnosis of syphilis.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.